The more I travel, the more I dislike the mass transit systems – sure they serve a necessary purpose and process huge amounts of people in sterile, vanilla sorts of ways but the waiting areas and tiny seats of cattle class are no fun at all. This has always struck me as odd given how fun-filled the actual places are that you leave from/arrive at.

We successfully negotiated Brisbane international, customs cleared, paper work filled out, duty free (or what passes for that in our country) and then walked a mile, literally, to the end of the terminal to wait for boarding. Flying Emirates this time and the service has been very good. Typing this in the departure lounge at Dubai international airport, via the free wifi provided (there is free wifi and then there is free wifi that works – this is fine as opposed to none available in Brisbane).

The first leg was long and exhausting – neither of us got much sleep but did catch up on some recent release movies not previously seen. Economy class is built for midgets without legs and given neither Jo or I are demure, nor are our legs detachable it was fairly uncomfortable for the nearly 15hrs we were strapped in and stationery.

An hour and a bit wait for the connect at Dubai before boarding the London bound leg and we are pumped and ready. Jo’s head cold and cough is manageable and my sinuses are not too bad so we should travel the remaining 7 hours ok. I thought the last plane was big but the next plane is bigger still being an A380-800

Jo and Peter in Dubai